"After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C., and came back home with some bacon. ... That's what you do," Detroit Councilwoman JoAnn Watson declared Tuesday. "Our people overwhelmingly supported the re-election of this president, and there also ought to be a quid pro quo ... and of course not just that, but why not?"

The councilwoman's plainspoken plea is well founded. Her city, which helped deliver Michigan to President Obama on Election Day, is a basket case. Detroit has a 19.6 percent unemployment rate and an individual poverty rate of 34.5 percent. The city's population has declined 25 percent since the turn of the century. It has the highest violent-crime rate of any major city, with 358 homicides — 14 more than last year — and there's nearly a month of mayhem still to go.

Ms. Watson does appear to realize Detroit needs much more than a bailout; that it won't recover until it undergoes a drastic cultural turnaround. But for municipal leaders facing bankruptcy, decaying infrastructure and diminished human capital, what else is she to ask for? Obamabucks wouldn't bring back Detroit's glory days, but they might buy time.

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